Saturday, November 27, 2004

The US Casualty Rate in Iraq: 9%

The US casualty rate in Iraq is about 9%, according to Editor & Publisher:

The Pentagon's latest official count, provided on Wednesday, listed 1230 American military killed in Iraq and another 9300 U.S. troops wounded in action. How seriously? More than 5000 of them were too badly injured to return to duty. More than 850 troops were reported to have been wounded in action in Falluja so far.

But this only scratches the surface of the total toll.

Earlier this week, CBS’s "60 Minutes" revealed that it had received a letter from the Pentagon declaring: "More than 15,000 troops with so-called 'non-battle' injuries and diseases have been evacuated from Iraq."

These include serious injuries that arise from accidents (vehicular and otherwise), trauma and severe psychiatric problems. The number is in line with estimates offered earlier this year by United Press International, based on arrivals at the main treatment center in Landstuhl, Germany.

Some of these Landstuhl cases are not serious but according to "60 Minutes" only 20 percent of the evacuees return to their units in Iraq. . . .

The total number of casualties is about 25,000, plus the more than 1,200 killed. Since about 300,000 men and women have served in Iraq, it makes for a casualty rate of about 9%. (emphasis added, Editor & Publisher, "Press Routinely Undercounts U.S. Casualties in Iraq," November 25, 2004)

In other words, US soldiers deployed in Iraq have nearly a one-in-ten chance of getting killed, physically wounded, or psychologically traumatized.

Cacu belli cause of war. in iraq our cacus belli was weapons of mass destruction and replacing a dictorship with a safe environment. The first reason was proven false and we have failed in the second. The Desert Storm loses were 147, miracously low. The reason for this was because the war was fought in third country were the Iraqis faced the same problems of Americans in terms of logistics. Even so the American losses were too low to account for the fact that the defensive team (iraq) wasnt on home ground. I have always had a suspicious feeling that it was an anolomy and not something that could be repeated easily. This is a tribute to those who planned the Gulf war and executed it. But one has to remember that the Gulf war was fought with Half million allied troops while 250 000 were American who did the bulk of the fighting the other troops helped to pin down the iraqis and strech their lines. In my mind ive played the scenoiro dozens of times before this war started and after it. What if the iraqis with their 250 000 troops and 1500 tanks had fought within the confines of the city with their artillery dug in on the outskirts of the city with their fighters reinforcing the buildings and fighting from within them. I feel the casualties would have been close to 5 000 allied troops.

The war in iraq and its casualites have to be broken down into two parts, the invasion and the occupation. The preoccupation and new doctrine moving away from attrition to overwhelming force helped in the intial stages. The movement away from force size and diminshed role of close groundwarfare and its development has paid it dearly in the occupation stage.(Abraham tank is not close ground warfare it reigns supreme in open desert with KZ range of 3km but in constricted city fighting its vehicles like the bradley fighter which have performed the best. Armour to withstand RPG and firepower to deal with highly armed and motivated fighters.)

So what should the strategy have been? Firstly not to fight at all a fight which is costly. Secondly when fighting in a hostile country with streched supply lines and not enough force numbers to pacify the country increased emphasis has to be paid to heavily armoured troop carriers such as Bradley.

Thirdly why such high casualities? In the gulf war 70% of the iraqi army didn't offer resistance. They simply surrended. To presume the same for every war was very dangerous. The marines face an opponent of around 20 000 highly armed and motivated men. That they are not able to decisively destroy them is not only an indicment of them but more so of those who develop strategies and doctrines. We are paying the price for fighting a war the U.S.A. military is illequiped for, that is holding vast terrain in a hostile environment. Fighting Division level battles in the open dessert is much more suited to the U.S.